


Light Sleeping

by JRanger_Raven



Category: Ranger's Apprentice - John Flanagan
Genre: 3 am talks, Existential Crisis, M/M, almonds, and also really smart, discovering secrets of the universe, i didnt spend too much time on it leave me alone, its really short, light fluff, they hit each other with pillows, warnings for violence, will is an idiot at 3 am
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-03
Updated: 2016-05-03
Packaged: 2018-06-06 06:18:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6742651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JRanger_Raven/pseuds/JRanger_Raven
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What happens when Will wakes up in the middle of the night (or the early morning) and has a mini existential crisis? Halt's so tired of these things, he just wants to sleep. (warning for Will/Halt)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Light Sleeping

It was still dark outside their window when Will woke Halt up.

“Halt…” Will whispered. He had one hand on Halt’s shoulder and the other supporting him so he could lift his upper body off the bed. Until about five minutes ago, Will’s head had been resting on his mentor’s chest, awake but staying still and letting the rising and falling of Halt’s breathing lift him up and down.

If somebody told Will two years ago that sleeping next to Halt would become commonplace, one year before Will was set to become a ranger, he would’ve laughed in their face. But, miraculously, it was. Commonplace, that is.

Will’s eyes had adjusted to the lack of light enough for him to see Halt’s face. He looked beautiful when he was sleeping. Will was almost reluctant to wake him up; maybe he could just watch and admire him; snuggle in even closer until there wasn’t an inch of space in between them. But he needed to talk to Halt about this.

Will had to whisper his name one more time, and shake him a little harder, but Halt did eventually begin to wake up. “Mn… what…” he mumbled, his eyes opening. He had trained himself (like Will) to wake up as quietly as possible, in case he had to wake up without somebody knowing. When he saw it was just Will waking him up, he relaxed a little.

“Halt, Halt are you awake?” he asked, even though Halt’s eyes were clearly open.

“...No.”

“Halt… what if an almond created the universe?”

The pause that Will left between that question and his next sentence gave Halt a chance to make sure he had actually heard that right. He stared at Will, speechless, and wondered for brief while if Will was giving him a warning signal. Maybe somebody had broken into the cabin and Will was acting in the most outrageous way possible to get his attention. But Will looked completely serious, not like he would be if he was giving a warning signal.

Which was actually scarier.

“Hear me out-” Will went on, “we say in the church that there’s one being that created everything, right? If that’s true, how do we know it’s a human? We have no real proof. It could be anything, even an almond.”

Halt stared at Will, his eyebrows coming together, mouth parted slightly open for potential questions. The only thing he could think of, though, was…

“Will, what the hell?”

“I mean, we don’t even know if this God thing has a physical form. Maybe it’s an empty space of air. Maybe it’s not a specific space of air, if it’s just air everywhere. Or it could be, like, a bag of almonds. Including or not including the bag.”

“Will,” Halt sighed, “go to sleep.” Halt squeezed his eyes shut and laid his head back on his pillow. “It’s got to be at least three in the morning.”

“Halt, what if it’s an almond?”

“I’m sure an almond didn’t create the universe.”

“But how do you know? Maybe almonds are really smart and we don’t know it. What goes on in their tiny heads?”

“How do you know?” Halt asked back.

“I don’t,” Will answered. He let himself down off his elbows, and laid on Halt’s body almost like he had been before he woke up. Halt was so strong he didn’t have any trouble supporting him when Will put his head on his chest and laid his full body on him like a second layer of clothes. It was the most intimate they could be; the most their bodies could touch.

He kept talking, “I’m just a theorist. Nobody knows, and nobody can or will ever know. So maybe it is an almond.”

“Well, you’re not wrong, but you need to go back to sleep,” Halt said, peering at Will through the small part in his eyelids. “It’s three in the morning.”

“But it’s possible! Listen, what if someone we know is actually God and they created everyone? Like, what if it’s Tug? Or Abelard? Or Crowley? Maybe everything was created when that person was born. Then the history we hear about would just be made up things, memories that never existed.”

“You put the horses before Crowley.”

“Halt, focus,” said Will.

“You’re telling me to focus.”

“What happens when we eat that almond that created the universe?” he asked, now suddenly back to the almond theory. “The universe will die.”

“The universe will die? Not explode, or disappear, but die.”

“But if it’s created by an almond, then the universe is living.”

Halt groaned. “Almonds aren’t… alive… Are they? No- no they’re not. I can’t believe I just doubted myself.”

Will looked away from Halt’s eyes to the top corner of the room, deep in thought. “Well… they could be.”

Both men were silent for a short minute. Halt was waiting for Will to say something else, while Will wasn’t sure what he was doing. He hadn’t been sure of what he was doing for a while now.

In reality, the ‘almond’ in question was just a metaphor for something else. Or, rather, anything else. Nobody really knew what the creator of the universe was made of, or what form it took, or if it took a form at all. So who knows what it really was, if anything at all?

It was a smart theory, and Halt respected that, but Will was talked about a literal almond so Halt refused to take him seriously. Not right now, in this state of mind. Will was just exhausted, and it was late. Late enough to lose some sanity.

“I need a new boyfriend,” Halt sighed, finally breaking the quiet.

“Me too,” Will replied, as-a-matter-of-factly.

“Go to sleep.”

“No,” said Will firmly. “This is important.”

“You’re not going to remember any of this in the morning.”

Will didn’t deny it. “That’s probably true. You’ll have to remind me.”

“I won’t. I think I actually lost brain cells talking about this. Will, an almond did not create the universe.” Halt hated how much this conversation had woke him up. It would be harder for him to go back to sleep now.

Strangely, Will grinned. It spread messily over his face, like he had no control over it, or himself, or over anything. “But how do you know?”

“I know that you’re going to have a full day of training tomorrow, and it’s three o’clock so you should get some more rest. Whatever you do, I’m going to bed.”

Will shook him again, harder than he needed to. But he wasn’t aware of his actions enough to realize that. “You can’t go to sleep yet!” he exclaimed, but his ‘exclamation’ was barely raised above a whisper. “I still have more theories about animals! Can different species understand each other?!”

“Don’t shake me so hard! Get ahold of yourself, Will.”

“I can’t.” Will grinned, and giggled like a madman. That was when Halt knew he’d gone absolutely crazy. “I’m too busy discovering the mysteries of the universe. If you go to sleep I’ll hit you with a pillow.”

“Good. Put me out of my misery.” Halt wasn’t sure Will actually meant it until he felt the slap of cotton against his face- his whole face, not just the side. Will had sat up, raised the pillow above his head, and brought it down mercilessly on him.

“Will!” Halt snapped. Will laughed, but he stopped laughing when Halt grabbed that pillow from him, sat up, and hit Will twice as hard as Will had hit him. Will fell over completely, lying now horizontally on the bed. The bed rose and made a “pfft” sound when he landed.

Then he just stayed there.

For a second Halt was concerned. “Will?” he asked. “Are you…” Then he saw the tiny shaking of Will’s body and heard the muffled giggles coming from him. He was laughing.

Any pity Halt had for him left.

“Well you deserved it,” Halt said curtly. He tossed the pillow down where it had been before Will picked it up. He leaned back on his hands; locked his elbows like he was planning to lay back down again, but he waited for Will to reply first. That didn’t happen.

He waited for just a minute before realizing that Will’s laughs had turned into snores; and Will had fallen asleep right where he landed. Halt snorted and rolled his eyes.

“What kind of ranger is this?” he muttered to himself as he took ahold of Will’s body. He began to drag him over to where Will had been sleeping before, so he’d be comfortable and not sleeping on his stomach (and also on Halt’s legs).

He got settled next to Will again, and, after planting a light kiss on Will’s lips and brushing the hair out of his eyes, Halt let himself fall under consciousness again. He fell asleep with an unexpected smile on his face, but how could he not smile when he was next to Will?

Even when Will was acting like an idiot.


End file.
